10 Secrets for Instant Self-Confidence

There are lots of ways to improve your self-confidence over the long-term – but sometimes you need an instant boost. You can’t walk into an important work meeting, (or a class at college or a room full of strangers at a party) whilst frantically re-reading a self-help manual, or making a last-minute phone call to your life-coach. So here are ten secrets to boosting your self-confidence in just a few seconds…

10 Secrets for Instant Self-Confidence

1. Smile

The one-second tip for when you’re feeling nervous and unconfident is simply to smile! You don’t just smile because you are happy and confident – you can smile to make yourself feel better. The act of smiling is so strongly associated with positive feelings that it’s almost impossible to feel bad while smiling.

“Smiling is much more then just a facial expression. The simple act of smiling releases feel-good endorphins, improves circulation to the face, makes you feel good about yourself in general and can definitely increase your self confidence. … you will also appear more confident to others while you’re smiling.”

As well as smiling, meet the eyes of other people in the room. Give them your smile; you’ll almost certainly get one back, and being smiled at is a great self-confidence boost. Like smiling, eye contact shows people that you’re confident. Staring at your shoes or at the table reinforces your feelings of self-doubt and shyness.

This tip is particularly useful for work-related situations – make eye contact with interviewers, or with the audience for your presentation:

“Eye contact helps take the fear away from the speaker by getting the audience closer to him. Stress is mainly a result of being with the unknown and uncontrollable. Eye contact gives the speaker a picture of the reality that is the audience. It also helps in getting the attention of the audience.”

Most of us have a critical inner voice that tells us we’re stupid, not good enough, that we’re too fat, thin, loud, quiet… Being able to change that inner voice is key to feeling self-confident on the inside, which will help you project your confidence to the world. Make your inner voice a supportive friend who knows you fully but also recognizes your talents and gifts, and wants you to make the best of yourself.

“You still want to be able to hear the message, so don’t make it so chilled and laid back that you never take any notice of it. You can even choose 2, 3 or as many voices as you want for different occasions. Your voice should always support you, always be helpful, never aggressive and it never puts you down.”

Whatever the situation that’s causing you a crisis of self-confidence, you can help yourself immeasurably by holding yourself to your own standards alone. Other people have different values from you, and however hard you try, you’ll never please everyone all of the time. Don’t worry that people will think you’re too overweight, underweight, too feckless, too boring, too frugal, too frivolous … hold yourself to your standards, not some imagined standards belonging to others. And remember that commonly-held values and standards vary from society to society: you don’t have to accept them just because the people around you do.

“People’s values define what they want personally, but morals define what the society around those people want for them. Certain behaviors are considered to be desirable by a given society, while others are considered to be undesirable. For the most part, however, morals are not written in stone, or proclaimed by God above, but instead reflect local sensibilities. Different societies have different ideas about what is acceptable and not acceptable.”

Even if you’ve only got a minute or two, duck into the bathroom to make sure you’re looking your best. Brushing your hair, giving your face a good wash, retouching your makeup, straightening your collar, checking you’ve not got a bit of parsley stuck between your teeth … all of these can make the difference between feeling confident in your physical appearance and feeling anxious about an imagined flaw.

“Perfect your physical appearance: There’s no denying that one’s grooming plays a crucial role in building confidence. Although we know what’s on the inside is what truly counts, your physical appearance will be the first to create an impression.”

If you believe in a higher power, whether God, or another spiritual force, it can be a real boost to self-confidence to say a silent prayer. (You could also meditate instead of praying.) This helps you to take a step back from your immediate situation, to see the wider picture and to seek help from something or someone greater than yourself. This is a Christian prayer, but you could write something similar that fits your own religious beliefs or spiritual tradition:

“Dear God, thank you that you love and accept me as I am … please help me to do the same … and help me to grow to become the person you want me to be so that my God-confidence and self-confidence will increase greatly—all for the glory of your name and not mine. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Amen.”

If something unexpected happens, it’s easy to let it knock your fledgling self-confidence. Perhaps you spill your drink on someone, you arrive late for the big meeting because of traffic problems, or someone who you wanted to speak to gives you a cold brush-off. Try to “reframe” the situation; put it in the best possible light: often, events are only negative because of the meaning we attach to them.

Keep your self-confidence up by taking gradual steps forwards, rather than freezing when faced with what seems like a giant leap. If you’re not sure what to do, look for one simple step that you can take to make progress. That might mean making eye contact at a party, introducing yourself to a stranger, breaking the ice in a meeting, or asking a question of your interviewers that shows your knowledge of their industry and company.

“Start taking action even if you don’t have a clear idea of what needs to be done. Start moving towards your goal. Make corrections later.”

An easy tip for both seeming and being more self-confidence is to speak slowly. If you gabble, you’ll end up feeling worse as you know you’re being unclear to your audience or to the person you’re in a conversation with. Speaking slowly gives you the chance to think about what you’re going to say next. If you’re giving a talk or presentation, pause at the end of phrases and sentences to help your audience take in what you’ve said.

“A person in authority, with authority, speaks slowly. It shows confidence. A person who feels that he isn’t worth listening to will speak quickly, because he doesn’t want to keep others waiting on something not worthy of listening to.”

Have you ever sat through an entire class at college or meeting at work without saying a word? Have you had an evening out where friends chatted happily while you sat and stared silently at your drink? Chances are, you weren’t feeling very self-confident at the time – and you probably felt even worse afterwards. Whatever the situation you’re in, make an effort to contribute. Even if you don’t think you have much to say, your thoughts and perspective are valuable to those around you.

“By making an effort to speak up at least once in every group discussion, you’ll become a better public speaker, more confident in your own thoughts, and recognized as a leader by your peers.”

72 Comments

Sometimes people just drag their confidence downhill because they are always repeating negative thoughts to themselves and our thoughts define our reality. By changing our inner voice and speak to ourselves in a more positive way, it will definitely boost our self confidence.

I used to suffer from depression and anxiety (anxiety is still a problem though; but improving); but most of it was due to my negative thought processes. I decided to work on it and I can’t tell you what a difference its made…

I realise there’s a chemical component to depression, but if its there you’re just reinforcing it with negative thoughts.

I read a book recently called “What You Think Of Me Is None Of My Business”. At first the title seemed confusing but then I realized that the author, a Californian woman whose name I can’t remember, was telling us that our self belief didn’t depend on validation from others. It’s what we think of ourselves that creates our happiness and our reality. So self confidence is an inside job and needs to be generated and nurtured from within.

I kept thnking, “OK, I’ll mention THIS tip in the comments.” And then I’d read another great tip and thing, “No, wait, I’ll talk about THIS one.” Good stuff.

But to choose one to mention, I really like, ‘Speak Slowly’. This one is so often missed as a key to confidence. I have such a tendency to speak quickly because I’ve trained myself to believe that if I don’t get the words out quickly, someone will interrupt and I won’t get to finish. But what this does is make me come across as lacking confidence. Which is something I struggle with.

Thanks, Peter, for the reminder to take a deep breath and ‘Speak Slowly’. Eric.

The old adage ‘when I look great, I feel great’ is so true. Taking an extra few moments to take a total account of appearance, loose ends, accessories etc, has made a huge difference for me. As a corporate trainer, the first the my audience perceived was the image I presented to them…followed by my presentation. It always helped to look sharp and feel confident and follow with the rest of the tips.

My confidence tip is to maintain a Universal Perspective, remember how small we all are and how fleeting our lives are. This may at first feel intimidating but once you get past the ego and accept this, you will be able to rise above the Battle of the Egos out there and smile at it all (because it is all so, so silly) and this will give you immeasurable self-confidence.

The tip about speaking slowly was very interesting. Up until now- I thought that a sign of intelligence was being able to speak quickly, as if you know everything about the topic that you were speaking about. After reading this- I realize that I only think that because a “fast-talking scientist” was the image that I was thinking of when I thought of intelligence. Now, I find people that talk fast annoying, it seems to me as if they are trying to prove their “smarts” to you.

Great tips, Ali.
I am interested on your first point : smile. You are right that smile can boost our confidence because I experienced it myself.
And I am also interested on speak slowly point, because all this time I have been speaking quickly.
Thanks for sharing this.

A subject close to my heart Ali, and I particularly love points 3, 4 and 10.

I’ve come to see self-confidence as a muscle – just like your glutes or biceps, if you want to develop it you’ve got to get out there and work it. Muscles develop in response to the level of performance you’re exposed to – that means that the more confident you need to be the more confidence you develop.

These are great tips for yourself.. but, how would you go about applying them to someone else that you may know? My boyfriend and i have been together close to a year and he still has issues with self image. He will not change in front of me and is a bit too self concious when in bed with me. not letting me take his shirt off. I think it may have something to do with the fact that he has exima.. does anyone have any tips?

Tip 1(Smile) and Tip9(speak slowly) are so true. I used to think that by speaking fast, you will picture urself as if you have command over what your are talking and shows your confidence. But that is so wrong, I was often told by people to slow down, never thought that my fast pace is sounding like jibberish to them.

Thanks for the story, found it valuable. I have found using affirmation cards has assisted me with the negative self talk. While they do not work instantly, I have found having a set on my desk, placed so my eye frequently catches the ‘card of the week’ has been a good strategy.

I think alot of times, one can get too logical about life. Life aint logical, and it’s alot simpler than we think. Simplicity should be what we should endeavor to do, more discernment less overthinking!
We think and think till it all becomes compartmentalised and rigid and mechanical.
It’s how about how we are able to feeel, it’s really easy to find things to enjoy an ice cream, a choclate bar half way through the day, life’s abundant when we’re grateful. It suprises me how so many people complain about nothing, they’re warm, they have a roof over their heads, their healths fine. We should be able to enjoy the lush things, a plunge in a pool, an ice cream, life’s a sensual experience.
Confidence, I agree about the smile, in Chinese the character for confidence and faith are the same. AFFIRMATIONS are the most impacting for confidence, ‘I affirm today that I’ve been able to…(list) and That’s who I am’ the next day comes yesterday you felt good about and here today comes and your focused in who you are. And you build up your affirmations and their strength overtime you get into a power mode that you can’t conceive of today. But have off days but affirmations are real powerful! Make them the centre of your being and who you are, when you invest who you are into something it’s something deep like your identity, so your bound to go at things with enthusiasm then.

Another thing, while I’ve visited, most people don’t perservere, the true people that make the breakthroughs they always stick things out they just have a determination of spirit, and EXPECTANCY, people lose expectancy as they grow older, but they shouldnt Expectancy in of its self the feeling of it brings you your results. When we work on how we feel that’s the secret I think.
Feeling confident is just about Feeling it not being in the restriction of the mind!

Your point about expectancy is a great one. I find that expecting myself to do a piece of work and expecting to do it successfully is critical when it comes to saying no to the inevitable distractions that the mind throws up to derail my efforts.

hi when im at work i have low confidence. i dont speak at none of the meetings. i feel as if im just being stepped on always. when im told to do something im not suppose to do. like being used i dont speak up for my self. i dont know how to speak up for myself how can i get help with this.

Hi Melissa. If you want to start to speak out and be heard, you have to practice hearing your own voice first. Here’s an idea. Write down a phrase of why you want to speak out. Practice saying it out loud in front of the mirror until you really start to hear yourself saying the words. ( It takes a couple times for you to get really comfortable)
Once you are comfortable saying the words to yourself, ask a friend to listen to you say the phrase. When that gets comfortable, ask 2-5 friends to listen to use say the phrase. When that is comfortable, ask a group of friends to listen to you.

When you have completed all of that, break out of your comfort zone and speak to people you don’t know. If they don’t speak back, that’s ok. You want to feel the rejection, but then quickly recover from it by doing it again and again until it doesn’t bother you anyway. If you complete this exercise, you will be so transformed that your office will miss the good ole’ days in the meetings, when you hardly talked at all. (smile).
To your success.

This is a wonderful post. I just re-read each post to see which ones I resonate most with – and I do with about 8 of them. The other two I enjoyed reading about and plan to give them a shot! Keep it up!

Thank you for these reminders Ali. They are great tips not only for adults but also for young people who are still trying to find their voices. What you shared are very practical and realistic. I’ll keep them in mind the next time I need a boost in the self-worth area.

I am facing some very hard times at the moment, after graduating overseas in IT, I found myself totally unemployed for about a year. a few months ago I got a job at a big hotel where I was put to the bottom of the heap as a spa cleaner. Everyone was cool to me, but the inner voice is always putting me down, how can someone so highly qualified can end up like this? I usually ask myself. But the point is, I was really having fun of myself, and it was truly cool until I was introduced to the team leader. She picked on me fairy quickly and now she negs, yells and acts like she is the smartest person on earth. Whatever opportunity she has, she will make sure she puts me down. I know she does not say it openly, but her actions and small jokes make me feel embarrassed for her, not for me. I am the most polite and caring person you can think of, and I guess that is why people like that pick on me instanlty. They can even smell the humbleness in the air, I guess. I’m truly sad about that, and I guess it’s time to change this before it’s too late.

hi , everyone , it a good website and it is a good subject as we are English students we hope we improve our skills such as public speaking , so M.Tim Brownson could you give us some advices about self-confidence.
thanks.

“Self-confidence is knowing that we have the capacity to do something good and firmly decide not to give up.”
– His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Great article: here are four simple ways to increase self confidence and restore faith in you!

1. Think “positive”: write down at least 10 things you’ve done well or been proud of in the last few weeks. Look at the list and think, what does this tell you you’re great at? You could also try to write down a few things each day that you’ve done well. They don’t have to be huge achievements, just stuff you’ve done a good job of. Also think about what you actually done to make these good things happen. Here you’re focusing on not only the outcome but also the process too. See negative experiences as temporary and specific to a situation.

2. Think “solutions”: big problems sometimes seem impossible to achieve, so break them down into smaller parts. Completing these small parts will make you feel more confident and valued.

3. Think “passion”: determine what you do best and then reorganize your life, if possible, to spend more time doing these activities.

4. Think “praise”: be alert to praise both informal and formal. A smile, lack of complaint, a nod, etc can all be taken to mean someone is happy about what you’re doing. Look out for the small signs that have big meanings.

Thanks for that, A lot of tips in here seems what I lacked of,
Smile is a very powerfull facial expression, And it’s the first thing i did once i read it,
instant self confidence, I am about to lost my confidence at this time, but this tips
will keep me to move ahead. Salamat (thanks)

“What is it that drives us forward? Is it the wind of change or is it something deeper; something not fully understood? when we are young ambition drives us to prove something if not to ourselves then to someone else. And yet, when we stop our proving and enjoy our journey for the journey’s sake we become bigger, more relaxed, open and sincere”

This is a quote from the book called ‘Inspirational leadership’, its a very easy book to read and has alot of little stories from the autor. The author is called Harley Lovegrove, he writes a blog also which follows the same lines. Good for these small little quotes.

Building confidence is the single most important part of personal development. Every topic revolves around it in some way or another. Learning how and most importantly putting the new knowledge to use is the most crucial step. You can fish all you want, but if you don’t cast the lure in to the water, you will never catch a fish!
Nice post!

If we choose to write down 5 to 10 positive things we do each day we may find that there will be more and more positive items show up each day. In a not so great day we can do many things well and spend out time focusing on the one moment that didn’t go well. Everybody has those moments so we need to learn that it’s just and event and nothing more so don’t attach the entire day to it. Your confidence will grow with focus on the good and moving along through the no so good.Boost Your Esteem

Another tip I can give for getting self confidence is to imagine yourself at your utmost best. Imagine yourself having all that success you want, achieving your goals. After you imagine that for a few minutes, you will see that you enter an amazing state of absolute confidence.

Nice list! I think that smiling is the key. Become a more positive person and you’ll instantly become a more confident person. Maintaining eye contact is another very important trait of every self-confident person. Slowing down (and I’m talking not only about slowing down your speech and movements) is a very effective tip, yet many people don’t put it in practice. Stop hurrying and start enjoying life more! Boom – instant confidence.

Controlling the inner voice is a really cool way to take control of your confidence in my opinion. Just being able to yell “shut up” can do wonders instantly to help give you a boost and allow you to move forward in what you want to achieve.

I love your post! The smiling step is a great one! I’ve noticed that the steps that always seem to have the most rapid and influential impact on self-confidence are the steps: change your inner voice and forget other people’s standards. If our inner voice is programmed for self-support, we are much more likely to have the inner encouragement we need to feel good about not just our tasks but who we are. When we feel confident in ourselves due to self-encouragement, we will appear more relaxed and easy going to others. That brings me to forgetting other people’s standards. It is important to remind ourselves that we are who we are and we are good enough. We can tend to elevate some people in our lives to a higher level than ourselves, and while that can be true about their job, or their title, it is important to remember that those things do not make them any better than us. We are as important and as good as they are and visa versa. If we know that everyone is created equal and therefore we are as good as anyone else, that can quickly deflate our insecurity about meeting an important boss, or someone we’d like to impress. Having inner thoughts of equality toward ourselves in relation to all others can really relax us, give us a sense of belonging and make us feel as though we can be successful in anything we do.

what you said makes so muuch sense, whenever i get nervous around popular people at my school i always think to myself that they think that im weird for being quiet or nervous. i cant help but always think this and i think about it so much that i start to feel weird and uncomfortable with myself and i start to feel un-confident and also like people dont want to talk to me because they can see that im so “wrapped up” in my thoughts. its nice to know now that i can think of people as being equal to me and visa versa. i still struggle with this to a certain extent (not as bad as before) and if anyone has any tips or suggestions on what i could do to improve my social skills with my peers then please reply and let me know.

I think that if you just practice changing your inner thoughts about yourself and others then confidence will start to take over for the insecure thoughts. Changing our inner thoughts takes a little patience and usually constant repetition of a new thought process. One thing you can repeat to yourself is: ‘All people are created equally, therefore, I am as good as anyone else. Including ___________. (Insert person’s name). Another one that is important is: ‘I am who I am and I am good enough.’ If there’s someone that has upset you, or someone who you’re nervous to spend time with, you could repeat this to yourself: ‘I am who I am and I am good enough, and so is __________.’ (Insert name here). :) So, really what you’re doing with repetition is encouraging yourself which is very important to a person’s ability to have self-confidence and feel good in the presence of people, especially people who are as good as we are, but tend to intimidate others. I hope this helps!

I do not have self confidence at all. I feel like crying most of the time. I am intelligent but can never speak up in groups. I cannot take my decisions and i depend a lot on others for their decisions. I have hundreds of dreams but do not know from where to start . I want to do a lot good . . .Please help

Hi Ali,
Excellent pointers. Strong eye contact, a nice smile and speaking with conviction is key to expressing high self-confidence. It’s really all in the mind. Quite down the noises of the mind and soon problems will start fading.

Thanks for the tips, they are great! Even though I have made the experience that
no matter how well I was prepared, I couldn’t control my nervousness.
For some month now I am taking lessons to improve my presentation skills and to gain more self confident. I found an online coaching website where you can call directly to a personal life coach. (Your24hCoach)
Speaking in front of people can really be practiced and can even make you feel good about yourself.
Now I get help when necessary because every audience and every presentation is different.

I like your ten step approach. Change takes time and requires a forward movement because change can be slow. In fact you can change without even knowing it because it is a ongoing fact of life. Happy people though just do not accept change they embrace it.
Think happy act happy practice happy and the way forward moves you in a new direction.
I am not sure if i agree with instant but the ten steps do bring you forward so that you can change yourself.

Smile, eye contact and appearance you can do now.
inner voice and other peoples standards are harder and slower to identify with
meditate, reframeand next step is finding the ability to regroup yourself
slower speech and contribution allows you to regain yourself in a situation

I love the idea of speaking slowly. It works with everything I have learnt about how we can gain control of our emotions not only from the inside out but also from the outside in. If I told you to jump up and down like you had just won the lottery and I asked if you felt depressed while you were doing that chances are you would find it very hard to be depressed when you’re doing that because your body is in a state of excitement. Same thing goes here. This blog has really given me something great but what has made all the difference for me are the contents of a video given away at davidbenjamincitron.com – it’s given me a new lease of life and I feel really confident about where I am going and what I am doing. Hope you get the same from it!

Love your post. So many people look in the mirror and determine their self confidence by what they see on the outside. Your comment about forgetting other peoples standards hit home with me. I found that I had been giving my power away to others in order to please them. Once I took back my power and started living to my standards my confidence level really increased. Thanks for the affirmation that I am on the right track.

Thank you the great article. My personal favorite that you wrote about is holding ourselves to our own standards instead of others. Half my life I spent holding myself to someone else’s belief and it left me emotionally drain.When I started doing what I thought was right for me I began to feel better.